My White Star lays white eggs - shell and yolk are good but in recent weeks the egg white is watery and cloudy. When boiled hard, the whites are sloppy and soft despite a solid yolk - at first I thought the shell might be more porous so letting water in but I had scrambled eggs the other day and noticed the turbid uncooked white. The other hen has started laying fairly regularly and her eggs are lovely. Both girls get the same feed and water, both seem well and healthy with good appetite, so would anyone know why the eggs are different?

both are older hens - the Blue is now over 4 and half years old (I got her Point-of-Lay in September 2013 so nearly 5?) and her eggs are lovely. I got the White Star (again Point-of-Lay) a year later so slightly younger - to be fair she has been laying non-stop with just maybe a couple of weeks with no eggs during really cold or shorter days/cloudy weather, with an egg on average every 2 or 3 days where the Blue has only recently just started laying (she had a full moult in late October so has had a good rest over the past few months)

Mo wrote:I seem to remember Manda saying it might be a virus.

the girls were vaccinated before I got them, have never free ranged or come into contact with local wild birds

I did a bit of googling on this LL and it seems whites in eggs laid by older birds can become watery so it may be Pearl's age that's at play here, bless her. Cloudy eggs are supposedly a sign of freshness, in that the co2 hasn't evaporated through the porous shell yet - if you leave the egg the white may become less cloudy, but may remain watery.

Thanks everyone - I suspected it might be due to age and have to confess when I saw it raw I was loathe to use the egg but I'd already added it to the other eggs to be scrambled - luckily it didn't affect the flavour when cooked. Funny enough Pearl the White Star has decided to stop laying so perhaps she was winding down for a rest after all. Scary the Blue on the other hand was watching me intently this morning when I opened the coop to check for eggs and came bolting back in despite lovely jubbly things put out to eat ... she was slow to leave the coop when I arrived (in daylight) so I have got a sneaky feeling she has gone broody.